Obama’s Speech Answered Some Questions, Avoided Others

Share

Some of the fiercest critics of President Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya were opinion columnists and political pundits, who saw no consistency and no exit strategy in the military effort. Obama clearly cares about getting these elite opinion-makers on his side; he gave a bunch of them a personal briefing on the speech before it happened. But how effective was his speech last night? As we wrote yesterday evening, many people felt Obama did a good job explaining why we got involved but struggled to clarify “when” and “how” our involvement, and the Libyan civil war we’ve become participants in, is going toend.